Ducks Unlimited has been chosen to receive the Boone and Crockett Club’s (B&C) prestigious Theodore Roosevelt Legacy Award for 2012. B&C President Ben Wallace presented the award to DU CEO Dale Hall on March 14 during the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Atlanta. The award was created in 2008 to honor the collaborative spirit of America’s greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt.

“This award is a way for us to highlight and encourage people and organizations working together to achieve great things,” said B&C President Ben Wallace. “Cooperative partnerships have proven crucial throughout the history of conservation—and they’re going to be even more important in the future.”

Etched on the award, the Boone and Crockett Club thanks DU “For its 75 years of extraordinary dedication to conserving over 12 million acres of waterfowl habitat and influencing 96 million more through partnerships and policy.” “Ducks Unlimited is truly honored to receive this prestigious award,” Hall said. “The Boone and Crockett Club and Ducks Unlimited have a rich conservation partnership history, sharing a strong commitment to wildlife and conservation. This award is especially humbling to me as a professional member of B&C. We are extremely proud of our long association with Boone and Crockett.”

Congratulations to DU on its well-deserved award. How many of you are DU members?

A controversial bill designed to limit the ability of the Idaho Fish & Game Department to regulate ATV hunting in backcountry areas has narrowly passed the state’s senate resource committee. If signed into law, state wildlife officials…

A coalition of outfitters from four western states are unhappy about changes to how New Mexico draws for its big-game hunts, and have gone to court to stop it, claiming the new law bars them from doing business in the state.

Outfitters from four Western states argued Wednesday in federal court that their constitutional rights to conduct business in New Mexico were being upended by changes to the state’s hunting draw. A coalition of several outfitters from Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington have asked the court to issue an injunction and temporary restraining order to keep New Mexico’s law from taking effect.

U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo ordered the proceeding to continue Thursday after hearing a few hours of testimony and evidence. The law spells out how many New Mexico residents, non-residents and outfitters can be awarded hunting tags through New Mexico’s draw system. Tens of thousands of hunting licenses are sold in the state every year, and a portion of those are doled out through the draw by the state Game and Fish Department.

The quota system was changed last year after New Mexico hunters fought to ensure in-state hunters received a larger portion of the hunting tags. At the center of the dispute is language that New Mexico legislators included in the law that mandated 10 percent of hunters cannot apply for a license through the draw unless they hire a New Mexico-based outfitter. Before this year, the location of an outfitter’s business didn’t matter.

According to the story, before the law was changed less than 80 percent of draw licenses were reserved for residents, with the remainder going to non-residents and outfitters. The new law gives New Mexico residents 84 percent of the draw tags.

“The bottom line is the problem that is being expressed has to do with this requirement to hire outfitters,” said Jeremy Vesbach, director of the wildlife federation. “Nobody is challenging the idea that residents can have a preference, but they’re trying to take down the whole building over it. They want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Vesbach also disputed the outfitters’ claims that they’re being barred from doing business in New Mexico. He said they can still compete for business, like they do in other states, they just wouldn’t be eligible for New Mexico’s “outfitter subsidy pool.”

A few weeks ago, I was out doing a little training with my graying, soon-to-be nine-year-old chessie. We were working on long blinds (something she’s never really excelled at). As she began to drift off the line I had sent her on, I gave her a sit whistle, which she ignored as if she hadn’t heard it.

“That’s not like her,” I thought as I gave her another, louder whistle, which she promptly obeyed as she usually does. I knew she probably hadn’t heard that first whistle, but at the time I chalked it up to the distance involved, the fact that we were working into a stiff, howling wind and a somewhat wimpy first whistle blast on my part.

But maybe she didn’t hear me because, well, she’s slowly going deaf? Many of us probably don’t give much thought to our dogs’ hearing, but considering how often their ears are subjected to close-range shotgun blasts, maybe we should. In a bit of serendipity, not long after I began wondering about my old dog’s hearing loss, I received an e-mail from Phil Bourjaily alerting me to the existence of a product I must admit I never knew existed.

They’re called Mutt Muffs and they’re exactly what they sound like: hearing protection for canines. The muffs come in sizes to fit dogs from 10 to 100 pounds, and the maker claims dogs get used to wearing them very quickly. It’s an interesting, if novel, concept. Obviously, Mutt Muffs are not going to do anything to reverse hearing loss, but theoretically they could certainly prevent further hearing loss, or, if you started early enough, eliminate it altogether.

I’m not sure it’s something I would use with my pointing dogs in the field, but I could certainly see the benefit of canine muffs within the confines of a duck blind. And as Phil pointed out, he would have loved to have had a pair for his setter, who apparently did not like thunderstorms.

What do you think? Would you use Mutt Muffs if it helped protect your gundog’s hearing? Here’s one satisfied gun dog owner who did. Thoughts?

It’s a somewhat embarrassing bit of personal trivia, and one I don’t often publicize, but the fact remains that at one time I was a reporter for (brace yourself) PEOPLE magazine. Yes, for six years I stalked celebrities, hid in bushes and chased limos. And in all that time, even as I had a kennel full of hunting dogs at home, I got exactly one assignment involving dogs, and none involving dogs that hunt or fish. I mean, it’s not like PEOPLE is full of those kinds of stories, right? Well…

From this story on peoplepets.com:This photo has already been captioned. It reads, “His face every time I catch a fish.” If you’re looking at the gentleman holding his catch, you’re doing it wrong. Slowly let your eyes drift to the right, and a little down, and you’ll see a dog’s hungry, desperate desire for a little piece of bass.

Gabe Hedger, a bass fishing enthusiast from Illinois, posted this photo of his puggle, Shane, on Reddit this week, and it has already gotten over a million views. The first-time poster provided three other examples (pictured below) of how his dog Shane (middle name: Grumpers) makes that face as consistently as Hedger catches fish.

Hedger writes that he and Shane travel everywhere together, and in the kayak on the water is one of their favorite places to be. The petite puggle stands on the back of Hedger’s kayak, and when the fish come up, his eyes come bulging out of his face. Shane has his own Facebook page, and in addition to fishing and begging for food, he enjoys “living the adventurous life.”

Funny stuff. Anyone have a dog that has a unique reaction to a certain object, sound or situation?

A South Carolina school principal’s collection of African game mounts has been removed from his office following an overwhelming deluge of… two complaints.
From this story on postandcourier.com:
An extensive collection of African ani…

Resisting pressure from animal rights groups, the Kentucky Wildlife Commission just voted to expand bear hunting opportunities in the state.
From this story on kfvs.com:
The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission has voted to set aside …

Is this vintage gun ad from Iver Johnson an innocent reminder of a bygone era, or is it just a really, really bad idea, even in the context of the gun-friendlier time in which it ran? You be the judge.

Coyote? Wolf? Coydog? Woyote? Everyone else has an opinion on the monstrous, 82 lb. whatever-it-is that was recently shot in Canada. Might as well chime in with yours.

From this story on telegram.com:The story of the 82-pound coyote not only has this province and the Internet buzzing, but wildlife watchers across the country are talking about it, too. Memorial University is doing the DNA testing on the brute, shot this week by Joe Fleming on the Bonavista Peninsula. The story garnered nearly 60,000 hits on The Telegram website and more than 180 comments by mid-afternoon Thursday.

Many are skeptical it is, in fact, a coyote because it looks wolf-like. Environment and Conservation Minister Terry French wondered Wednesday if the creature could be a wolf that crossed on the ice from Labrador or, perhaps, a hybrid or the result of a coyote-dog crossbreeding. The DNA testing could have complications, but the mystery could be solved soon. Steve Carr of the biology department at MUN said how the testing proceeds and what further genetic investigation is required will depend on what’s found at each stage.

Don’t ask… I just took the picture while wandering the aisles at the Pheasants Forever Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic last month. I have no idea what’s going on inside the head of either the wire-haired pointing griffon (at least I th…